Monthly Archives: September 2010

Sep 27 2010
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edinburgh

Doors Open Day

After just over two months in Edinburgh, I guess I’m starting to get a little homesick. Not enough to come back, but I’m spending more minutes everyday thinking about family, friends, hockey, the CBC and all things Canada.

The feeling of homesickness could also have something to do with the very cold weather in Edinburgh right now. Its much easier to keep yourself distracted when you’re constantly on the go.

I’m taking a couple odd jobs to get by, but am still looking for decent work. Its a very tough job market here. A few places are hiring extra staff on for Christmas, which should lead to something at least for a few months.

On Sunday, I went out and took advantage of doors open day in Edinburgh. For those in Canada, doors open day is what it sounds like. Historical and modern buildings that aren’t normally open to the public are open for the day. I went to Calton Hill (one of my favourite spots), Merchant Hall, the University Library, and University School of Informatics. The Observatory House at Calton Hill is actually being converted into a Holiday Rental, which I thought was a very intriguing idea. I can only imagine what a stay there would be like once the building is renovated. The other buildings I saw were quite grand; as you’d expect the library and merchant hall were very Victorian with high ceilings, greek columns, grandfather clocks and portraits everywhere. The school of informatics building on the other hand was ultra modern with a very open design and is apparently very energy efficient; they also had a lot of cool toys.

Some places were open on Saturday and not Sunday, so I missed them. I’m not too broken up about that because they have this every year which will give me another chance.

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Sep 10 2010
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Scotland

My Family Tree

I started a new project this morning. I went to the Scottish People’s Registrar Office for their daily introductory session, and to get a start on learning a bit more about my family tree and my scottish connections.

My priority is to find out more about my grandmothers family and if possible find clues that will help me meet living relatives. They have a website where you can search birth, marriage and death records for the last two centuries as well as old census information and a few other things. It being my first day, I only was interested in births, marriages and deaths.

It was a great start, but I’ll need to head back next week.

I found my grandparents’ marriage certificate on their system, and am starting to feel like a proper researcher. Pretty soon I’ll have to decide if there are any  things that I want copies of.  I don’t have such grandiose plans, but I know some people create massive family histories with rooms full of source material.

So far I’ve sketched out a few new branches on the family tree, but there is much more to do. Its a little time consuming to do all these searches, and some of the handwriting is very difficult to decipher or has faded over time.

It would be nice to have more of understanding of the family, ideally before I go up to the Cameron Museum east of Fort William. If I’m successful in tracking down some of my Scottish relatives, I might also find they have researched their genealogies and have information they can share with me.

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Sep 09 2010
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Scotland

Edinburgh back to normal – I’m guessing

The Fringe festival is finally over, and the tourist numbers in the city centre have come way down. On Sunday night, they celebrated with fireworks and the Edinburgh Symphony Orchestra. The band is set up right below the castle in Princes Street Gardens and the fireworks are setup on the old battlements and launched upwards, lighting up the whole castle in the process.

I’d been down to the Royal Mile a few times since the festival had ended and its a completely different atmosphere. The chaos is way down, and you can mostly walk down the streets without getting close enough to know what your fellow tourists had eaten for lunch.

I watched the fireworks from Inverleith Park outside the city centre near the Botanical Gardens. They’d set up a big screen, speakers and a few food vendors to serve the two or three thousand people who were watching from there.  I wanted to get an idea how Vancouver Festival of Light’s compared to the Edinburgh show.

The orchestra was playing a few classical pieces composed for movies like On the Waterfront and Marnie. I’ve heard of both but don’t really know either well enough to have any memory of the music. Marnie actually stars Sean Connery. The orchestra was excellent, and I got to hear a few pieces of music that I don’t think I’ve really listened to before and enjoyed all of them. It got really cold later in the evening, but the orchestra was the biggest difference from the Celebration of Lights, which I think I still preferred in the end.

The Edinburgh show had a very unique piece though. There was a waterfall effect created down the side of the castle and hillside. Not many cities have such a backdrop to work with, and the people doing the show knew how to make the best use of it.

They’re probably very practiced from the Tattoo, which closes each show with a short fireworks demonstration above the castle.

Excellent backdrop for a very unique show.

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